Don't Say Goodbye
by ScarletRaine13
Summary: Axel loved Roxas, he knew that. He would do anything for Roxas, he knew that too. However, when it comes time for that 'anything,' he falters. That, well, he doesn't know about that... AkuRoku, background Zemyx, and inspired by Red vs. Blue


I've been watching Red vs. Blue like crazy and this fic was inspired by the Memory unit nonsense (If you've watched the show, then you know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't, then you're missing out! Go watch the show!). Anyway, like I said, inspired, so things aren't exactly the same, and you don't need to know anything about the show to read this fic.

Also this fic goes out to my girl Color With Marker, it's her birthday (or it's around there). Hope you like it! And I hope the rest of you reading like it as well~

Finally, I don't wanna ruin anything, but just…prepare yourselves….

Disclaimer: I don't own anything (obviously)

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The first time he'd thought it'd been a dream.

"Hey," Demyx said randomly, cutting off the duo's silence. Axel hummed to let it be known he was listening. "You ever wonder why we're here?"

Axel couldn't help but stumble slightly as he walked. "What?" Axel couldn't be sure if Demyx had just forgotten their lunch plans or was asking in a more…cosmic sense.

"Like, out of everywhere in time and space we all ended up here, together. Why do you think that is?"

Was this really Demyx? Axel peered over to his friend, his face contorted in confusion. He wanted to just dismiss the question, call out Demyx on his very Zexion-like thought, but he didn't. Axel looked away from Demyx, back down the sidewalk they were travelling on, cars racing passed them. He sought a serious answer for Demyx's surprisingly serious question. "Who cares," Axel eventually settled on just as they turned a corner, almost to their destination.

This time Demyx was the one to look over to him. "That's it? Just 'Who cares'?"

Axel shrugged, stuffing his hands in his coat pockets. "I mean, we're here, yeah? Who cares about the reason why? There's never going to be an answer, so why wonder about it at all."

"So, you never think about it?" Demyx asked, quickly continuing to say, "Like, you never stay awake at night just asking yourself why out of all possibilities this was the one you ended up with."

The redhead paused, Demyx soon following suit. "Uh, no. Do _you_ ever do that?"

Demyx let out an uneasy laugh at that, running a hand through his hair. "What, _no_ , that's crazy…."

Axel's gaze flicked from the blonde to back down the street, not yet seeing his boyfriend Roxas, who they were meeting up with for a lunch, double date. Returning his eyes to Demyx, he gave him an unsure look. "Do…do you wanna talk about it?"

However, Demyx's answer, no doubt a refusal, was cut off by the sound of screeching and loud crashes and screams soon after that. The duo looked towards the source and began to make their way. It wasn't as though they'd be able to help, but they were still drawn to the destruction nonetheless.

It was a decision Axel was quick to regret when he could see the familiar blonde lying in a pool of his own blood. He could vaguely hear Demyx saying something, could vaguely feel the other's hold on his shoulder, but Axel was numb to it all.

That was Roxas!

That was _his_ Roxas!

This…this couldn't be happening.

Surely it was all a dream, some fucked up dream, and he thought that was true when he reopened his eyes and saw his white ceiling above him.

He'd hugged Roxas a little tighter that day, kissed him just a bit more, but, for the most part, Axel didn't give it much thought, he didn't want to.

The second time he had tried to forget the dream as best he could. However, when Demyx asked that same question, Axel practically panicked on the sidewalk. It was supposed to be a dream. Running to the intersection, Demyx trailing behind him, Axel got there just in time to see the impact.

The third time he knew all of it was real, that was no longer up for debate. He kept Roxas in, but the blonde still left for work eventually, though a bit late, and Axel might not have seen Roxas die, but he was still told.

The fourth time Axel pleaded with Roxas not to go to work, to call in sick, but the blonde didn't listen.

The fifth time he did, and when Axel woke up the next day he thought it was over. However, Roxas left for work, and Axel got another devastating call.

On and on it went. Sometimes Axel could keep his boyfriend alive for a month, perhaps even a bit more, but eventually it all came to an end. Roxas would die, and Axel would try to fix it. Axel never gave up, even though he'd seen Roxas die more than a hundred times, he didn't give up. The thought of giving up never even crossed his mind.

Axel never told anyone in any of the iterations; he figured no one would believe him so why bother. However, while out on another double lunch date with Demyx and Zexion, Axel couldn't help but bring it up, unintentionally interrupting Demyx as he did.

"Do you ever feel like you're living days that have already happened?"

Alright, so it wasn't as though he told them the complete truth, they definitely wouldn't believe that, but maybe he wasn't alone in this. Perhaps one of this friends, or maybe even Roxas himself, knew that time was looping. Perhaps Axel would have help to keep the love of his life alive.

Demyx hummed as he pondered the question, but Zexion was quick to ask, "Like Déjà vu?"

"Ah, I guess. Yeah, sure," Axel eventually agreed, though he was hoping for more than just a slight feeling of familiarity.

"I've been feeling it a lot lately," Demyx answered.

Zexion nodded in agreement from beside Demyx, and Axel tried to keep his hope at bay. Déjà vu didn't mean they were aware of the rewinds or that they would believe they were happening, but he couldn't help but feel slightly relieved. His friends were feeling _something_ , and it was reassuring.

That night Roxas had tried to stop a mugging while walking home from work and had been stabbed.

The next iteration, Axel went to Demyx and Zexion's place while Roxas was at work. The slate haired man read and the blonde played his sitar, but Axel just sat, tense, until finally Zexion noticed.

"Axel, are you alright?"

The redhead wanted to scream, he wanted to throw things and just yell, but he remained calm and placed a hand on his jittering leg to stop it. "Do you ever get that feeling of Déjà vu?" he asked again.

Demyx looked up from his sitar with a surprised expression. "I felt one just now, actually," and Zexion nodded in agreement.

Axel was quick to believe they'd felt it because they'd already been asked this question, the past to Axel that wasn't even a future anymore. Talk about a headache.

"Is that why you're so…anxious? You've been getting a sense of Déjà vu?" Zexion asked with a raised brow, book forgotten on his lap.

He almost wanted to laugh. It was so much more than that; he remembered everything, every detail, every way in which Roxas died, every way in which he failed.

With the ringing of his phone, Axel was brought from his thoughts, and pulling it out of his pocket, he knew the number by heart. He just sat, clutching the device in his hand until Demyx spoke up. "Are you gonna answer that?"

Then the ringing stopped, and Axel, frown on his face and eyes watering, just looked up and said, "Roxas is dead."

A notion confirmed when he blacked out and awoke in his own bed, Roxas alive and beside him.

Staring up at their white ceiling, Axel wondered what the hell he was supposed to do. He kept being sent back to save Roxas, right? If that was the case, then why was it so hard, so impossible?! Turning and curling around the blonde beside him, Axel kept his tears at bay, and he prayed he would win this time.

He didn't.

"Hey, Dem, would you do anything to stay with Zexion?" Axel couldn't help but ask one time while the two were out getting a drink, Luxord just a bit away behind the counter.

Demyx hummed as he fiddled with his glass, eventually lifting it to take a drink. "I want to say yes…."

Axel peered over to him with a raised brow, surprised at his answer. "But?"

"But, I love him." Demyx paused, taking another drink before continuing, "And because I love him, I'd let him go…if that's what he wanted, of course."

Axel watched his friend in slight awe, and then he turned to his own drink with a snort, trying to lighten the situation. "You'd be a fucking mess."

Demyx let out a hollow laugh, and the two moved on to easier and lighter topics, Demyx no doubt pushing the topic from his mind, but Axel latched onto it and pondered it.

Roxas died the next day.

Axel was at a loss. He'd tried too many things, memorized days and sequences, but nothing was working. Roxas kept dying. No matter what Axel did or tried, he kept dying.

He decided to finally talk to someone about it and who better than the nerd of their group.

"I'm sorry, could you say that again?"

Axel groaned from his spot on Zexion's couch, slate haired man next to him. "Time keeps rewinding-"

"And you're the only one who remembers?"

With a feeble shrug, Axel said, "Well, you've been getting feelings of Déjà vu, right?"

Zexion's expression shifted to surprise at the question. "How did you know that?"

Oh, Axel must have forgotten they hadn't had that conversation in this iteration. It was hard to keep track sometimes. "We've talked about it before."

"In other time lines…?"

"Yes!"

Zexion seemed to deflate as he let out a sigh, brushing his hair from his face as he did. "Alright, let me get this straight. Time's rewinding and you remember everything." Axel resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It all sounded so simple, but Axel knew it would be tough for anyone to swallow. "Why?" Zexion asked, and wasn't that the question.

At first, Axel would say it was because the universe or whatever was causing the rewinds wanted him to save Roxas, but now that didn't seem right. Why, indeed.

"Axel…" Zexion began in his most comforting voice once Axel had been quiet for too long. Axel looked toward him and noticed the other's reluctant expression. "Roxas has mentioned you seem closed off lately." Zexion paused again. "Do…do you need to talk to someone, to Demyx?"

Axel stood, running a hand over his face and through his hair with a groan. Zexion didn't believe him. "I'm not lying!" he yelled, not meaning to get so frustrated.

Zexion winced from his seat, obviously startled by the volume, but he did well to remain calm. "Okay, I'm sorry-"

"No, I'm sorry. It's just…. I don't know why, Zex," Axel said with a defeated sigh, falling back onto the couch and burying his face in his hands. "I thought I did but…."

He could hear Zexion shift slightly closer, but the other didn't make a move to touch Axel just yet. "Well, what did you think?"

This was the hard part, or the harder part since everything about this was fucking difficult. Zexion and Roxas were best friends, and while Axel knew he needed help, it felt…wrong to tell Zexion. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all.

"Axel."

With a sigh, Axel relented. "Roxas keeps…dying." There's a heavy silence that stretched through the air, and surprisingly Axel was the one to break it. "Over and over, and at first I thought the universe was giving me another chance, you know?" He got up at this, the big detail out of the way and everything else just spilling out of him now. "But he keeps dying, and I don't get it! I don't get what the _fuck_ is going on! None of this makes any goddamn sense!" He finished with a yell, and he paused, arms outstretched. Zexion was quick to get up and wrap his arms around Axel's neck, very unlike the bookworm but appreciated as Axel practically collapsed onto him in anguish. "I can't save him…."

Axel's phone began to ring, and without even checking it, he pushed Zexion away in desperation. "What do I do?! Zex, please!"

Zexion looked flustered and absolutely unsure, but he managed to stutter out a feeble reply. "I-I don't…know…."

Then Axel woke up with Roxas beside him, and the cycle continued.

"Do you ever wonder why we're here?" Axel asked as he and Roxas ate breakfast together before they both left for work.

"Because the other apartment had mold in it?" Roxas joked, obviously not taking the conversation seriously.

"No, I mean like…. Do you ever wonder why we ended up _here,_ out of everywhere else?"

Roxas settled his mug on the table at Axel's question, seeming to finally understand that Axel's tone was much more somber than he'd thought. "Axel, are you okay?"

He wasn't, he was never okay anymore. "Do you ever wonder why we're here, Roxas?"

"It's never mattered," he answered just as seriously as Axel asked. "I'm here with you, but who cares _why_ it happened. As long as we're happy, who cares?"

Axel stared off, unable to meet Roxas' blue gaze. "But what if we aren't happy? What if we're just stuck in this perpetual loop-"

"Are you unhappy, Axel? Did I do something?" Roxas began to rant, cutting Axel off due to his worry.

Axel reluctantly met his gaze again and tried to give him a smile, though it came across as a light grimace. Roxas _had_ done something, but it wasn't as though he had any control over it. "N-No. I love you and you're absolutely perfect, but…. Roxas, what do you do when you keep trying to be happy but what you're doing isn't working?"

Roxas still looked worried, obviously not understanding what Axel was getting at, which was fine. Axel didn't need Roxas to understand; he just needed to ask, to get it off his chest, perhaps. "Well," Roxas began slowly, pausing for a short moment as though collecting his thoughts, "I suppose you try something else."

 _Something else._

What else was there to do but save Roxas, or try to anyway? There was no other option.

Roxas didn't die that day, but he did die the next because Axel had forgotten about that mugging.

On the first day, the day Roxas would die due to getting involved in an accident, Axel couldn't help but pose a scenario.

"So, you read a story about a guy who travels back in time every time his lover dies?" Roxas summarized, and Axel gave a nod from the seat across from him. "And you're wondering…what exactly?"

Axel, who had been tracing every wisp of Roxas' hair with his eyes, lowered his gaze. "I'm wondering what you'd do in his situation," he answered simply, needing a different perspective.

Roxas began to ponder again. "Well, was time on a loop or was the guy reversing time?"

Axel's brows raised; he'd never thought of that. What if it wasn't the universe but him? If that was the case, then when the fuck had he developed time powers?! "I…I don't know?"

"You don't know…. Did you actually read this story?" Roxas asked with a slight smirk on his face.

Axel couldn't help but roll his eyes, his usual response when Roxas had that teasing tone. "I didn't finish it yet," he lied easily, though it was partially true. "What do you think?"

"I think it's the guy," Roxas answered easily. "I mean, the lover keeps dying so obviously time isn't reversing to give the guy an attempt to save him." Axel couldn't think of anything to say, and Roxas thought maybe he just hadn't understood. "Does that make sense?"

"Yes," but if Axel was the one reversing time, was there even a way to save Roxas? And, again, when the fuck had he developed time powers!?

"Well, it sounds cruel for everyone involved. To die a hundred times, to watch the one you love die a hundred times…" Roxas trailed off, and Axel almost couldn't bear to look at him. "I think…eventually, I'd let them go."

His mouth opened and closed, unable to get the words out. Let them go? Did he mean…. "What?" he eventually asked. He needed to hear Roxas say it clearly; he didn't want to assume anything.

Roxas looked just as upset by the answer, but he didn't change his mind. "At that point no one's really _living_ , they're just…repeating moments in time."

"You'd give up, let them die?"

Roxas gave him a sad, small smile. "They're already dead."

At that Axel stood from his seat, eyes wide with desperation and reluctance. He couldn't accept that, he couldn't. "But it could work! I might be able to do it! Eventually I could-"

"Axel!" Axel's hands were clutching the table edge, knuckles white from his tight grip. Focusing his gaze on Roxas again, the blonde looked even more worried than before. "Axel," he repeated in a more gentle tone, causing the redhead to fall back into his seat, head falling onto the table. He could feel Roxas running his fingers through his hair. "I know we promised we'd always be there to bring each other back," Roxas began, and Axel reached forward to clutch onto Roxas' sleeve as the blonde continued to try and soothe Axel, "but there are some things you can't come back from."

"I-I can't lose you…"

Roxas laid his free hand on Axel's, the one that had been clutching Roxas' sleeve. "Sure you can. It'd hurt for a while, but it would get better."

Axel shook his head the smallest amount, unable to speak.

"I think if I was to die…" he paused in both his works and movement for just a moment before continuing, "I think I'd want you to let me go and be happy."

Axel shifted his other hand to grab the one Roxas had in Axel's hair and raised his head, green eyes watering. "I can't-can't be happy without you."

Roxas gave his hands a squeeze, sad smile on his face again. "Then you'd have to at least try."

With a sniffle, Axel took back one of his hands and wipe the tears from his face, regaining at least some composure. Roxas wanted Axel to let him go, but that seemed so impossible. Axel couldn't imagine he'd ever be happy without Roxas in his life. Before he'd met the blonde, Axel had just felt empty, heartless, and if he was to lose him, especially so soon, Axel didn't know if he could take it.

That day Roxas called in sick to take care of Axel, who couldn't seem to stop crying. However, the blonde died two days later.

Axel went through more repeats with almost a numb feeling. He still tried to save Roxas each and every time, but Roxas' words also kept weighing on him. What Axel was doing was cruel to everyone, he understood that, but he didn't know if he could stop.

It didn't really hit him until they were on that first day again, the thirteenth repeat since their talk. Axel had held onto Roxas' hand, even followed him to the door. He'd been trying to convince Roxas to stay home with him and relax, but the blonde wasn't having it.

"Axel," Roxas began with a light tug as they stood by the door, fond expression on his face. "I need you to let go."

He…he needed to let go.

Axel squeezed Roxas' hand just a bit tighter; he needed to end all of this. He would never be able to save Roxas; no matter how many times he rewound, Axel wouldn't be able to win. "I'm letting you go," he choked out, earning a confused and concerned expression from Roxas.

"Are you okay?"

He wasn't and he wouldn't be for a long time, but maybe one day he would be. Roxas wanted him to let go because he was already dead, and Roxas just wanted him to be happy. Axel didn't know if he'd ever get there but for Roxas he could try.

Axel wasn't just letting go for himself; he was letting go for Roxas, the one he had turned back time for.

"I'm letting you go, Roxy," Axel repeated, this time releasing his hold on the blonde. Sorry excuse for a smile on his face, he said, "I love you."

Roxas tilted his head to the side just slightly, "I love you too. Are you sure you're okay? I can stay if you need me."

And it was so tempting to keep Roxas there, but if he didn't die today, he'd die tomorrow. He'd always die, and Axel just hadn't wanted to accept that. "I'll be okay," he said in the most reassuring tone he could muster, trying to convince not just Roxas but himself as well.

"Okay then," Roxas finally accepted and made his way out the door. "I'll see ya later," Roxas said as he pulled Axel down for a short, sweet kiss. Before Roxas could completely pull away, Axel held him in place, just looking at him for a moment, taking him in.

"…Goodbye."

Roxas' face contorted in distaste at the word. "You know I hate those," and yeah, Axel knew; he felt the same way, disliked their…permanence, but this was permanent.

 _This_ was a goodbye.

He forced his lip to quirk up in a smirk, trying to put Roxas' concern at ease. "Right, sorry …" he breathed, sorry for making this permanent, sorry for failing, sorry for being selfish. Axel was just sorry for everything; even the things he knew weren't his fault. He was just so fucking _sorry_.

He gave Roxas one last kiss, a final kiss to convey everything he was trying to hide, and then….

Then Axel let him go, and Roxas didn't come back.


End file.
